


Let Fortune Have Its Say

by LectorEl



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Tim's Broken Heart, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LectorEl/pseuds/LectorEl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first and last time in two centuries, it was his agenda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Fortune Have Its Say

Tim was something of an expert in recognizing the effect of magic upon a person. He did, after all, have two centuries of experience with it himself. The Lazarus pit is never silent.

“Master-mine, you are cruel,” Tim muttered under his breath, watching his younger self drift through his day. His lover, his hated and despised beloved, had never bothered playing fair. He didn’t know why this latest revelation surprised him.

The curse was one of the type Tim mentally categorized as misdirection spells. Magics designed to make people see false things. This one…

Tim whispered a blessing, one of the few weak magics he’d mastered, and stepped deeper into the shadows. He had a cursebreaker to find.

What do you think you’re doing, Timothy? His master’s voice asks in his mind.

What I always do, master. Fix things, and move forward the agenda.

It was just that, for the first and last time in two centuries, it was _his_ agenda.

***

“Hello, Jason,” Tim said, stepping out from behind a dumpster, plain wooden mask firmly in place. It’d been a while since he pulled a bat trick.

Jason Blood stiffened, and nodded at him. “… Robin.”

“Call me East, please. It’s been a long time since I wore feathers.” Tim said, hopping up onto the dumpster lid.

“I see,” Blood said, voice carefully blank of particular emotion. “What beings you here, East?”

“I need the services of a cursebreaker, and my contacts are not of use here.” Here, Gotham, here, the twenty-first century, po-tay-to, poh-tah-to.

“For what reason?” Blood asked, and Tim has earned that. To anyone with a hint of preternatural awareness, he stank of despair and rage and strangling, sickening magic. Bindings, curses, the lingering remnants of coercion spells, just about every form of malign working there is.

It’s been a long, long two centuries.

“Negligence curse, target non-specific, affecting a seventeen year old male,” Tim rattled off, shaking away the shadowy memories. “And the break needs to work without tuning to a particular person.”

The look Blood gave him said that the man knew _exactly_ what Tim was up to, but would let him get away with it for now. “Come back in three days. I expect adequate recompense for this.”

“But of course. I pay my debts,” Tim promised, lingering bitterness coating the back of his throat. Debts. It was always debts. The devil’s not in the details, he’s in the signature on the dotted line.

***

He had … dreams, when he slept. Nightmares.

The sense memory of kneeling at Ra’s feet, and fighting beside him. The arguments they’d had a thousand times, words bladed with malice. The way his knives, sharp and keen, carved through the flesh of any who threatened them. Hating Ra’s, and loving him, and hating that he loved him. The boil of resentment and gratitude, mixed with sour jealousy and old hurt. They’d been a disaster together.

Tim squeezed his eyes shut, and counted to ten. Then he rose, dusting off the layer of fine grime that had settled on his coat while he slept, and slipped out of the unfinished construction site.

“I’m here,” Tim said, trying not to tap his foot. “And I know you are too, Blood.”

“East,” Blood said wearily. Tim smothered a smile. He was of the age few people were older than him, and it was nice to be around those who weren’t his master.

“You have the break?” Tim asked.

Blood nodded, opening his closed fist to reveal a grey stone with a faint, iridescent shimmer. “I’d suggest not handling it directly. You have enough old magics on you I’m not sure how it would react.”

“Warning noted.” Tim removed a length of clean silk from one of the inner pockets of his jacket, and folded the break up into it. “Pleasure doing business with you. Payment is in your shop.”

***

It took less than fifteen minutes after tucking the break into his younger self’s hand as he slept for Batman to descend down upon him. Blood did good work.

“What did you do?” The man growled. Tim rolled his eyes, trying to swallow down the nausea that brewed in his guts.

“Employed a cursebreaker on your previous partner’s behalf. Your distaste for magic leaves your whole clan vulnerable to it, you know.” Tim looked up at the man he’d lost, and sighed. He’s tired, and his hands beneath the streetlights were translucent. “I don’t think you want him becoming me anyway, Dad.”

Batman reared back. “ _Tim_?”

“More or less. Rather less, these days.” Tim shrugged, feeling the fading weight of his own body. “Keep Ra’s away from me, please.” He fumbled at his mask, fingers slipping through the wood. Batman – no, Bruce – stepped forward, pulling it off him.

“Tim, what happened? What’s going on?” Bruce demanded.

“I missed you, dad,” he said, and then all he knew was black.


End file.
